Profound Thought No. 5

From the very start Colombe and I have been at war because as far as Colombe is concerned life is a permanent battle where you can only win by destroying the other guy. She cannot feel safe if she hasn't crushed her adversaries and reduced their territory to the meanest share. A world where there's room for other people is a dangerous world, according to her pathetic warmongering criteria. At the same time she still needs them just a bit, for a small but essential chore: someone, after all, has to recognize her power. So not only does she spend her time trying to crush me by every available means, but on top of it she would like me to tell her, while her sword is under my chin, that she is the greatest and that I love her. So there are days when she drives me absolutely crazy. And as for the frosting on the cake, for some obscure reason Colombe, who most of the time is totally insensitive to what's going on with other people, has figured out that what I dread more than anything else in life is noise. I think she discovered this by chance. It would never have crossed her mind spontaneously that somebody might actually need silence. That silence helps you to go inward, that anyone who is interested in something more than just life outside actually needs silence: this, I think, is not something Colombe is capable of understanding, because her inner space is as chaotic and noisy as the street outside...In short, since she can't invade anything else because I am totally inaccessible to her on a human level, she invades my personal auditory space, and ruins my life from morning to night. You really have to have a pretty impoverished concept of territory to stoop this low; I don't give a damn about where I happen to be, provided nothing stops me from going into my mind. But Colombe won't stop at just ignoring the facts; she converts them into philosophy: "My pest of a little sister is an intolerant and depressive little runt who hates other people and would rather live in a cemetery where everyone is dead--whereas I am outgoing, joyful, and full of life." If there is one thing I detest, it's when people transform their powerlessness or alienation into a creed. With Colombe, I've really lucked out.

from The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery